Last week, TandEM students commitees from Università Sapienza di Roma, Università L’Orientale di Napoli and Università di Pisa, have gathered at IOM premises in Rome to attend the first follow-up meeting after a long summer break: an occasion to share their achievements, talk about the obstacles encountered within their universities, discuss the agenda for the months ahead and learn from different experiences!

The first day, TandEM counted on the kind intervention of the Italian Ministry of Education, represented by the Head of Unit for the Internationalization of the Higher Education,  Federico Cinquepalmi. Mr. Cinquepalmi, who opened the afternoon session introducing the Ministry commitment to integration and inclusion of foreign students in the Italian Universities system, was then followed by Michelle Manks, Senior Manager of the WUSC Student Refugee Program (World University Service of Canada). The WUSC is a Canadian no-profit organization committed to improving education, employment, and empowerment opportunities for youth around the world, with a broad experience on mentoring activities (a mentorship scheme for refugee students is running since several decades). After a brief description of WUSC work, Michelle has presented to the TandEM mentors the organization and the activities carried out by the Canadian Students Association, sharing inputs and ideas on fundraising and future sustainability of the newly established TandEM committees. The students, after having presented their achievements and work, have shared a detailed presentation of services offered by their universities for foreign students, focusing the attention also on issues related to intercultural exchanges. Michelle presentation, was supported by two students of the Italian Mentorship scheme connected on Skype, who described their experience in Ottawa at the WUSC’s Leadership Conference of last August.

The second day instead, was all about communication and visibility: the video-making agency Vudio will work with the Students’ Committees until next March. The idea is to create a smartphone documentary to follow committees progresses, where students will be both directors and protagonists! Video recording techniques and narrative line of the documentary were presented by Fabrizio Ulisse and Lisa Miraldi, the video makers who will guide the committees throughout the project.

Here a sneak preview of our mentors while learning how to use their smartphones:

Soon to come, more information about the documentary, stay tuned!